The Middle East Plastics Additives business unit of German chemical giant BASF (Ludwigshafen; www.basf.com) has extended its customer specific blends (CSB) tolling agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Astra Polymers (Al-Khobar; www.astra-polymers.com). Under the terms of the deal, the Saudi group has been operating BASF-owned CSB production lines at its factory in Dammam, output of which BASF Plastic Additives Middle East then markets and sells across the region.

In mid-2010, BASF had cancelled plans by Ciba to enter into a CBS joint venture with Astra Polymers – see Plasteurope.com of 05.07.2010. That decision, however, had not affected the tolling agreement between the two players. The German group’s plans to commission a 16,000 t/y customer-specific antioxidant blends facility in neighbouring Bahrain in Q4 this year – see Plasteurope.com of 22.07.2011 – also would not affect its cooperation with Astra Polymers in Saudi Arabia, BASF said.